Note of the Open Data Governance Board Meeting, 7 June 2016

Open Data Governance Board Meeting

Tuesday 7^th June 2016

Attendance:  Dennis Jennings (Acting Chair), Ashling Cunningham, , Denis Parfenov, Sandra Collins,  Cronan McNamara, Sue Duke, Barry Lowry, Dietrich Rebholz (by phone)

Apologies:  Emer Coleman, Daithí Mac Síthigh

Secretariat: Evelyn O'Connor, Marian Beakey, Krystyna Pycinska-Taylor 

A number of documents had issued to the Board in advance of the meeting as follows:

i.Concise progress report;

ii.Overview of responses from public bodies on high value datasets;

iii.Draft for discussion on an Open Data strategy;

iv.Note of meeting 4th April and progress on the actions arising from January meeting.

The items on the agenda were discussed as set out below:

1.Minutes of 4^th April meeting.

The Minutes were agreed.

2.Actions arising

Members noted the progress with these items and requested that the Actions table be updated and expanded on an ongoing basis. Completed items should remain on the list to ensure a comprehensive record of progress. New items will be added based on discussions at the ODGB.

Action 1 (Secretariat)

Actions Arising Table to be updated on an ongoing basis, with completion dates included.

3.Scheduling of meetings for 2016

The Secretariat will circulate a list of possible dates for meetings for the remainder of 2016. The Board agreed that 4 meetings should be arranged to facilitate a full discussion about the Open Data Strategy with the key stakeholder groups.

Action 2 (Secretariat and Board)

Schedule of meetings for the remainder of 2016 to be proposed and agreed.

4. Report on Progress and high value datasets

The Secretariat provided an update on Open Data progress achieved since the April meeting. The Board noted the positive engagement with a number of public bodies and requested that this be continued and increased, resources permitting. The Board welcomed the significant progress in terms of the number of datasets linked to data.gov.ie (now 4324) and noted that the majority are available for re-use under the Creative Commons attribution licence (CC-BY).

The Board discussed the potential value of developing use cases for the Open Data Initiative. These will help to identify the benefits being derived from Open Data and may, in turn, encourage public bodies to engage further in the Initiative. The ongoing EU survey might provide useful examples of use, re-use and redistribution of data and the Secretariat was asked to prepare a summary document for the Board, once the EU exercise has been completed.

Board Members also thought that there was value in proactively raising suggestions directly with public bodies to encourage the release of datasets as Open Data. Examples of such data include patents and trademarks, and lists of publicly funded research.

The Secretariat continues to meet with public bodies to raise awareness of the Open Data Initiative, and encourage bodies to publish their data in compliance with the Technical Framework. This will be complemented by the enhanced “Suggest a Dataset” facility on the Open Data portal which ensures that suggested datasets and comments/updates are published through the portal.

Action 3 (Secretariat)

Progress Report to be updated for next meeting. This will take account of progress with high-value datasets; and will include update on the number of suggestions received through the portal.

Action 4 (Secretariat)

Produce a half page summary of the EU Use Cases Survey for Board.

5. Meeting with representatives of PBWG

Four representatives of the Public Bodies Working Group (PBWG) joined the meeting to discuss how they can work most effectively with the ODGB to progress the Open Data Initiative. The representatives were from the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, the Office of Public Works, the National Transport Authority and the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government.

The discussion focussed on the challenges faced by the PBWG in building engagement within their public bodies and in ensuring that data is published as Open Data wherever possible.

Key issues identified include:

• Securing senior management buy-in.
• Ensuring data quality and data preservation.
• Updating previously published data so that it complies with the Open Data Technical Framework.
• Ensuring that appropriate communications and outreach activities build stakeholder engagement.
• Ensuring that sensitive information can be anonymised correctly.
• Ensuring that data users understand conditions for use, re-use and redistribution of data.
• Developing categorisation and classification taxonomies to ensure that name changes for a public body do not cause significant problems in the long term.
• Considering whether public bodies should lead on visualisations and App development, or if this should be left to other data users.
• Ensuring that the necessary supports were available to public bodies to deal with the issues discussed, to ensure that public bodies can meet the requirements of the Open Data Initiative. It was envisaged that this would include provision of guidance, tools, workshops, communications material as well as the putting in place of a Framework contract to support public bodies in carrying out various tasks to enable publication of datasets in open format. 

Action 5 (Secretariat)

Arrange meeting with PBWG to further discuss challenges and potential solutions as input to the development of the Open Data Strategy (meeting on 15 June)

Action 6 (Secretariat)

Commence preparatory work with the Office of Government Procurement to launch a procurement exercise establishing a framework for support to public bodies in relation to Open Data Initiatives including, but not limited to, audits, preparation of data for publication as Open Data, publishing data in compliance with the Technical Framework, maintaining those datasets, and training.

6.Approach to Open Data Strategy – for discussion

A draft document, circulated to the Board, follows on from the Foundation Document for the development of an Open Data Strategy, which was the subject of a public consultation process in 2015. The Board considered engagement with key stakeholder groups to be a fundamental step towards completion of the strategy and agreed that the next three meetings should include a discussion with representatives of the business, research and civil society stakeholder groups.

Following these meetings, a final meeting should be held in 2016 to agree a proposed Strategy which would then go for Government Decision through the usual approval process.

Action 7 (All)

Work towards production of a proposed Open Data Strategy by end 2016. This Strategy will then go through the usual approval process (Memorandum for Government, circulated to all Departments for comments and approval) prior to adoption by Government Decision.

7.AOB – including planning events

There was no discussion of AOB.  However Evelyn mentioned that the Department proposed to submit to the Board for consideration a draft scheme with criteria in the form of a small competitive fund for which entities could submit proposals (e.g. for hosting events, using open data from the portal or other means) for achieving Open Data objectives. 

8.Dates for next ODGB meetings

It was proposed that meetings would be held in July, September, October and November; and that the Secretariat would circulate proposed dates for agreement.

_______________________

Open Data Unit

Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

June 2016